


Like Lions, Like Lambs

by Novocaine



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: I don't know even what I'm doing to be honest, M/M, Makeup Sex, Post Reichenbach, Reunions, Self Beta'd, Some angst, Which isn't saying much, oh and some rimming too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 20:35:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novocaine/pseuds/Novocaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is back.  That makes things better.</p><p>(But it makes them worse too.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Lions, Like Lambs

_Round here we talk just like lions_

_But we sacrifice just like lambs._ -Counting Crows; "Round Here."

 

*

 

\--And just like that, he’s back.

 

In all his well-earned arrogance and fiery grace, Sherlock returns to 221b; bruised, battered, not at all deterred and alive.  Very, very much alive.  If Sherlock was expecting a happy reunion, John doesn’t deliver.  Their first meeting since the fall is volatile, loud, angry and though there are bruises left on John’s pride (and for that matter, his heart), Sherlock is the one to leave with the bloody nose.

When the last drop of John’s anger leaves him, when the initial humiliation and sense of utter betrayal has frayed at the edges leaving a sense of emptiness in its place, he moves back in.  He knows Sherlock expects things to go back into some semblance of normality and he certainly wastes no time trying to strike up his familiar routine—hunting down madmen, leaving cadaver parts in the fridge and playing his violin at all hours of the night. 

For John, none of this is normal and he’s resigned himself to the fact that it probably won’t be again.  The dead should stay dead and wounds shouldn’t be left to fester, but here Sherlock is, alive and eccentric as ever and ready to pretend he never left.  As if he never forced John to watch him plummet to the ground, as if he didn’t leave him with the image of a hollow-eyed stare and dark ringlets of hair heavy with blood.  As if he hadn’t left him to wish he hadn’t uttered those words in the middle of a sweltering desert; “Please God, let me live,” because if this was living, this half-state of being but not feeling, he didn’t want it.  John can’t pretend—won’t—and while Sherlock has honed his disregard of the entire event to a fever pitch, John is lucky if he can sleep through the night without reliving it.  One morning at breakfast, Sherlock reached for his hand as he said something, but John couldn’t make out the words because Sherlock’s hands over his made him remember the day he checked for a fluttering pulse and was instead met with the empty, hollow feel of the newly dead.

Shuddering, he ripped his hand away and ran into the bathroom to vomit.  Sherlock hadn’t touched him since.

Sherlock says without saying, in subtle, indirect ways that he wants what he and John had — whatever it was exactly—before the fall.  Even then, they had no name for it.  Sherlock would never get caught up in such romanticized ideals like love or devotion, so the two of them orchestrated a carefully synchronized dance of longing and indifference.  Sherlock wouldn’t admit to being in love and John wouldn’t say that he wasn’t, and neither of them would make such declarations aloud.  But John remembers nights spent in a pool of rumpled sheets; Sherlock’s heart-shaped mouth hot against his neck, elegant fingers heavy on his hips and all he could think was “how could this not be love?” even if he never dared to give the words life.

If he’s honest with himself, John wants their relationship—however undefined it may have been—to go back to how it was too.  But it’s hard to remake ties with a man you thought dead for three whole years.  It’s hard to pretend that he doesn’t feel as if Sherlock is going to dissolve right in front of him and John will wake in a world where all that’s left of the man is a shiny, obsidian tombstone with his name carved in it. 

Some days are worse than others. 

Some days he can sit in the living room and listen to Sherlock play his violin, much to the detectives delight.  Other days, he thinks he’s looking at a ghost and can’t—really, _really_ can’t, so without a word, he grabs his coat and leaves with the sharp notes of a lonely melody following him out onto the street.

It is Sherlock who finally snaps.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Sherlock announces one day; poised on the leather couch and tapping out a new tobacco entry on his laptop.

John stops midway in the process of adding more sugar to his coffee. “What are you talking about?” he asks, and his voice doesn’t sound half as oblivious as he hoped. 

Of course, Sherlock sees right through it; he always does.  And it angers him.  He closes his laptop and flings it across the room where it slams against the wall and shatters beneath a yellow smiley face.  “This, John,” he hisses, gesturing with his hands madly, “this thing between us—or lack thereof.”  He runs his fingers through wild curls, mouth twisted, eyes narrowed.

John works his jaw and turns to stare back defiantly at the man.  “I don’t know what you’re—“

“Don’t!” He orders sharply, pointing an accusatory finger at the doctor.  His breathing is harsh and erratic with the force of his anger, but as he moves closer to John, each step seems to burn away the raw edge of fury until Sherlock is standing before him with something like sorrow in his gaze.  “Don’t,” he reiterates softly, “don’t say that.  Because you know; _you know_.”

They haven’t been this close in years.  John can smell the fusion of scents that is utterly Sherlock; the cedarwood of his body wash, the apple-cinnamon of his shampoo, the spice of his deodorant and the earl-grey of his breath.  There is warmth radiating off the lithe frame and John wants to bury his face into the thin chest and let the feel, the smell, the _existence_ of this man to overpower him.   John holds back, fights the urge, but Sherlock makes it clear that he will do no such thing.  He places a hand on either side of John’s face, his thumbs tracing the bags beneath his weary eyes.

Finally, John finds his voice.  “Three years,” he says, and his words are heavy, thick with emotion.  “Three years you were gone—you left me.  And—God, Sherlock—you made me watch, you made me watch you _fall_.” 

His face crumples and for a moment he looks so much like the little boy who wanted to grow up and become a pirate one day. “I did it for you.  I did it to keep you safe, tell me that counts for something.”

And of course John knows this, of course it counts.  But while Sherlock’s actions were pure, the consequences were not and he wasn’t the one that had to live with being left behind.  It was John who had to rebuild his life in the wake of tragedy, it was he who sat in an empty flat and he who visited an empty grave.  John carried the weight of all the missed moments, all the unfinished memories and the echoes of all the unsaid words that lived between them.  Perhaps it was Sherlock who suffered _best_ , but it was John who suffered _most_ and how could he part with his pain and aloneness long enough to forgive?

“It counts,” he says, mostly because he knows that Sherlock needs to hear it. 

And as if that’s the only motivation he needed, Sherlock kisses him long and terribly sweet.  John knows where this is going and despite the fact that he knows they still need to talk, that they’ve come no closer to forgiveness or acceptance and that consummating a still broken relationship could make things that much worse, he doesn’t stop it from happening.

It’s a little clumsy; three years apart and weeks of dancing around the act have left them starved for each other’s touch.  There are a few awkward moments, but John laughs it off against Sherlock’s mouth and he feels those lips twitch into a half-smile.  They tumble into bed, a tangle of limbs and tongues and shared breaths.  Sherlock licks and bites and nips him; he remembers every single one of John’s erogenous zones and takes his time to stimulate each and every one, until he has John writhing and begging shamelessly.  It makes him laugh and the deep, rich sound of it goes straight to John’s groin making him that much harder.  When Sherlock rolls him onto his belly, he shudders at the kisses that move down his back, further and further until—

“— _Sherlock_.”

Long fingers are spreading him open and a tongue is wiggling its way inside.  It’s warm and hot and _wet._ Sherlock is shameless in his actions; licking, sucking and moaning into the puckered entrance as if he’s never wanted to do anything more in his life.  John’s hands form a white-knuckled grip on the sheets.  It feels good in the strange, inexplicable way that can only come from being so exposed, spread open and treated like a delicacy.  He chokes on his own breath, says, “Sherlock,” again and there must be something in the way John says his name because the hands on his ass tighten and he feels the vibrations of a long moan against his aperture.   Everything feels off kilter and John has to close his eyes.  He wants to bite his lip to keep silent, but he knows he’s more likely to bite right through it in this state.  When he feels a finger press inside, he gives up the fight and lets out a long, low moan that proves to be Sherlock’s undoing.  He’s moved onto his back and ordered to move further up the bed, a demand he obediently follows.

He’s panting against the pillows, arms thrown haphazardly on either side of his head.  Vaguely, he hears Sherlock rummaging around in the top compartment of his nightshade and he doesn’t need to be a master of deduction to know what he’s looking for, but then he remembers; “I—Sherlock, we don’t have any condoms.”

“We don’t need them.”  His voice is tight, strained, _hungry._

That sobers him up.  John tries to sit up on his elbows.  “Wait—no, Sherlock, we—“  The pop of bottle cap ends his sentence as Sherlock pushes him back down.

“We don’t,” he repeats.  There is a span of silence that stretches ten heartbeats (John counts each one as a reminder to keep breathing) and then a cold, slick finger is forcing its way inside.  “You’re as tight as I left you,” he says, and from the mildly arrogant lilt to his voice, John knows he didn’t expect to have it any other way.  “You’ve not had anyone else.”

And it’s true.  Curse Sherlock and his deductions, his intellect, his expectations.  It’s true.   “Now isn’t the best time for you and your—“ His voice falters and eases into an embarrassingly high moan as another digit follows the first.  The burn is achingly familiar but it’s been too long and already he feels too full.

“You waited.”  Sherlock’s voice is neither teasing nor questioning.

John finds it in himself to level Sherlock with one of his own ‘you astonish me with the debt of your stupidity’ looks.  “That doesn’t change anything.  _This_ doesn’t change anything, Sherlock—this doesn’t make things better and it—“

Sherlock leans forward and kisses him breathless, using the distraction to ease in a third finger and stretching carefully even as the muscle tenses and resists.  John groans and lifts his hips, hands moving to grip tight on thin shoulders.  Sherlock says, “I know.  I don’t expect it to.” He nips at the hollow of John’s throat and fights the urge to grin at the keening sound the doctor makes.  “We need to talk and we will—later.  We have time.”

“How can you know that?”

Sherlock can hear the echo of three long, lonely years in that question.  There is still so much left to talk about, so many decisions left to make and explanations to be traded.  It might not get better, not right away, but Sherlock can’t imagine this rift between them getting any worse.  John was the only bit of stability he’d allowed himself and he wants that back—he wants late night tea with Mrs. Hudsons meat pasties, he wants re-runs of awful soap operas with John’s head in his lap while the man tries to explain why so-and-so slept with what’s-his-face and the how the baby actually belongs to the clueless git on the left.  He wants John to tell him he’s amazing and make him feel special for doing things that have alienated him from the general populace since he was old enough to understand the taunts of other children and still vulnerable enough to let them hurt.  He wants John to smile at him like he used to, laugh with him like he used, _trust_ him like he used to.

“Because I’m not going anywhere.”

And while that isn’t everything, it just might be enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I refuse to be an upstanding, responsible student and choose to write porn instead.


End file.
